Scotland: Highlands & Wester Ross

This was a week-long birding trip with Heatherlea: Highlands & Wester Ross from July 16th-23rd, 2022. We were based in Heatherlea's own hotel 'Mount View' in Nethy Bridge for most of the week with a two night stay at Gairloch on the West Coast.

I travelled up on the midday train from Kings Cross to Aviemore with my friends John and Janet. For some inexplicable reason we all had to decant trains at York and board another train that had just arrived from the north while our train went back to London. We kept a bird list but it was slow going and we were relieved to arrive just 15 minutes late. Heatherlea picked us up, along with several other fellow passengers and we made our way to Nethybridge. After a quick check in we had dinner and discussed plans for the next day's birding.

On Sunday we had a day birding locally, firstly in Abernethy Forest to look for Crossbills and Crested Tit. We had good views of the first but only heard the latter. There were quite a lot of Ringlets on the wing including several lacking the golden circles that give them their name.

Common Crossbill

'Plain' Ringlet

We stopped at a private loch to see a fine Slavonian Grebe then drove around a private estate hoping to see Capercaillie which we didn't. We stopped for a distant Dipper at Old Spey Bridge and saw several butterflies including Northern Brown Argus before ending the day at Lochindorb seeing Black-throated Divers and plenty of Red Grouse.

Spey river with resident Dipper

Old Spey Bridge

Northern Brown Argus

Lochindorb

Red Grouse

On Monday we left straight after breakfast for our West Coast expedition, picking up Red Kite along the way. During our three day visit we explored many bays along the coast and various moorland stops, seeing three species of diver, White-tailed Eagle, Black Guillemot, Otter and a Hooded Crow on the roof of our hotel.

Otter

Hooded Crow

Red-throated Diver

Our hotel at Gairloch

A roadside stop in western Scotland

Waterfall

We walked up a hill looking for Ptarmigan but didn’t see any, however we did get brief views of Azure Hawker, a rare and very localised dragonfly and a new one for me. We were always on the lookout for wildlife and also saw several Magpie Moths and even visited a public convenience just to look for moths!

Walking up the hill

Scanning for Ptarmigan

View from the top

Northern Marsh Orchid

Magpie Moth

Dotted Carpet

On the middle day we had a boat trip out towards Skye, actually a RHIB which was fast as well as surprisingly comfortable. This was the highlight of the trip for most people (probably everyone), starting with close up Storm Petrels and even a couple of Leach's Petrels, a pod of acrobatic Common Dolphins and a Minke Whale that spent about 20 minutes checking us out, circling the boat and even swimming just underneath us. At one point it surfaced so close to us that you could even see its blow, which you don’t normally see on these small whales. We also saw a flock of Manx Shearwaters as well as Puffins, Guillemots and Razorbills.

Common Dolphins

Minke Whale

Back at Nethybridge we had a Dipper the following morning before breakfast from the main bridge in the village before spending another day in the Highlands, this time seeing several Crested Tits and several Northern Spinach moths before stopping to visit a pair of breeding Ospreys.

Dipper at Nethybridge

Osprey nest

Northern Spinach moth

We then spent the rest of the afternoon in the Lower Findhorn Valley which was full of raptors including two Golden Eagles, a distant White-tailed Eagle, Osprey and Peregrine. There were plenty of insects including Emerald Damselfly and more butterflies and moths.

Emerald Damselfly

After dinner we had an evening visit to see a Short-eared Owl on the moors.

Our last day's birding was spent on the East Coast, primarily at Troup Head which hosts Scotland's only mainland gannetry along with plenty of other breeding seabirds. Bird flu was in evidence with many Gannet corpses littering the cliffs. The coastal walk was good for butterflies, especially Dark Green Fritillary.

Troup Head seabird colony

Troup Head Gannetry

Fulmar coming in to land

Dark Green Fritillary

We also visited a few other sites for waders and other seabirds before making our way back to Mount View for our last night and then the return train journey back to London.